The Best Charlotte Coding Bootcamps Of 2023

I am a career changer transitioning from 22 years in healthcare to cybersecurity. For the past 3 years cybersecurity has sparked my interest, so I decided to take the leap and enroll in UNC-Charlotte's cybersecurity bootcamp. It was the best decision and an experience that I will remember for a life-time.  I enjoyed the instructional staff and making new friends through the program. The instructional team and my peers were very supportive. I enjoyed working with other students to complete projects, and I was challenged to think in new ways.   The benefits of this program included office hours to ask questions before and after class; utilizing tutors; and 24/7 live support.  My advice to future students would be to set a study schedule, practice exercises, utilize tutors, and bring your own skills to the table. Everyone has skills, no matter your background, that will contribute to the cybersecurity experience. 

I enrolled into Nucamp because the courses seemed to be inline with what I wanted to learn to become a Back End Software Engineer. Going through this first course, I firmly believe this has been the best thing for me! I'm extremely happy I decided to enroll into this bootcamp and can't wait to utilize what I learn to a future Software Engineering role!

As someone who wanted to make a 180 degree career change and quickly develop marketable coding skills without breaking the bank, Parsity was the perfect bootcamp for me. From a top level perspective, it checked off a lot of the boxes I was looking for: fully remote learning environment with the flexibility to work at my own pace (and either full-time or part-time), continual mentorship and support from the staff both during and after the program, and insanely good value when comparing their price to the average cost of a coding bootcamp.

The curriculum was very well structured with a natural progression of concepts. The first half focused on the Front End - We started with a review of JavaScript fundamentals and CSS/HTML before moving on to DOM manipulation, working with APIs, and then diving into the React framework. In the second half of the course, we transitioned to the Back End, learning how to build our own web servers and databases with Node, Express and MongoDB before putting everything together and developing Full Stack applications. At the end of each week, we were assigned a mini-project that covered what we had just learned. These were very challenging, but always engaging and I really felt like I was building something practical while working on them.

Despite the bootcamp being fully remote, I still had great opportunities to collaborate with other students. In the middle of the course, we had a week-long paired programming hackathon, and towards the end, the entire cohort worked together on a group project simulating an Agile-style sprint in which we were tasked to develop a functioning Full Stack application in 2 weeks. I'd say this experience along with our independent final project was probably where I learned and grew the most. Everything really came together here: putting all the coding skills I'd been honing to use, working/communicating in a group setting (and dealing with the unique challenges this can present), planning out design and structure at a larger scale, using Git flow effectively, and presenting an app as if demoing to a client. These projects were easily my favorite part of the program.

On top of that, I received a ton of support from Parsity in the job search after graduating. First of all, we had dedicated time spent solely on career development, including refining our resumes and LinkedIn profiles, writing effective cover letters, networking, and preparing for the interview process. I also had access to a fantastic Career Services Coach that met with me frequently and was always available when I reached out. I got a ton of helpful advice that was tailored to my own particular job search, as well as mock interviews structured for the specific companies I was focused on. The assistance I received after graduating was invaluable, and ultimately played a huge role in me landing my first developer job.

All in all, if you're interested in programming and want to shift your career trajectory, I highly recommend Parsity. I never would have believed a year ago that I could learn so much in such a short timeframe and actually get hired as a programmer. But it's true - coding bootcamps are a totally viable pathway and Parsity is a great one with great value. Enrolling was one of the best decisions I've ever made.